1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a variety of microfabricated tools that can be employed for manipulating and measuring small (1 mm to 1 micrometer), delicate samples. These samples include macromolecular crystals, small molecule crystals, cells, tissues and cellular organelles. Examples of operations to be performed include measuring sample dimensions and sample temperature, retrieving samples from a solution or growth medium and transferring them from one solution to another, removing samples that are adhered to substrate surfaces, delicately but rigidly gripping and holding the samples, and mounting samples for optical or X-ray examination.
2. Description of the Background Art
Samples such as protein and virus crystals, cells and tissues are extremely fragile and can easily be damaged by incidental contact with hard (e.g., metal) objects. They often adhere to glass slides or glass, plastic or metal containers in which they are grown and are difficult to remove. They often occur together in clusters or encased in other material such as protein skins, gels or lipids, so that they must be separated and extracted in order to study an individual sample. They must often be transferred from one solution or medium to another. Commercial fine-tipped metal tools—such as those in the German-made Micro-Tools™ kits sold by Hampton Research (http://www.hamptonresearch.com/) can be used to accomplish these tasks. However, because of their hardness and stiffness and the inevitable imprecision and vibrations associated with manual movement, they often damage or destroy the samples of interest even with only incidental contact, and they are too large for the smaller samples (100 micrometers or smaller) of increasing interest in, for example, protein crystallography. As a result, a need exists for tools which can be used for handling these small biological samples and other small delicate samples without damaging or destroying the same.